Reference no: EM132723322

MIDDLE BEACH MEDICAL CLINIC

• Middle Beach Medical Clinic is a busy clinic located in an inner suburb of capital city. The centre is owned by five doctors but there are twelve other doctors employed. Some doctors are full time while others are part time. All the doctors' hours vary as the clinic is opened seven days a week, Monday to Friday 7.30 am - 8.00 pm and Saturday and Sunday 8.00 am - 12.00 pm.

• The clinic also employs an Practice Manager, five receptionists/office administrators and three part time nurses.

• Most doctors specialise in specific areas of medicine. Some patients consistently see the same doctor but many patients change from doctor to doctor based on their requirement for a speciality in medicine and doctor availability.

• The clinic is always busy but at times it can become hectic as up to eight doctors are simultaneously seeing patients during the clinic's peak times. The reception desk becomes congested as reception staff are taking calls to book appointments, take messages or transfer calls, greeting patients, checking appointments, making new appointments and processing accounts. On occasions there have been disputes as patients feel that they are not being attended to in turn.

• When doctors are running late, the waiting room overfills and patients are sometimes forced to stand or to wait outside in a courtyard area. A café is located a few doors away and some patients like to spend waiting time here. This causes problems as patients are recorded as having arrived but staff are unable to locate them when it is their turn to be seen by the doctor.

• The clinic is experiencing problems at the reception area that needs addressing. Patients are sometimes overlooked upon arrival and doctors are not aware that they have arrived resulting in appointment slots being missed. Patients also become frustrated and angry when waiting times extend up to one hour. Confusion sometimes arises as patients are unsure as to which doctor they are booked in to see. Staff cannot always easily locate patients when they are ready to be seen by the doctor. The reception area is crowded and reading materials are limited. The clinic is very proactive about cross infection. Daily newspapers are provided but magazines and toys are considered a potential source of infection.

The clinic is wanting to make the following improvements to the way the reception area is managed and have requested you to assist with this task.

1. Greeting patients and noting their arrival
2. Reducing confusion of which doctor patients are seeing
3. Reducing waiting times or notifying patients before they arrive that appointments are running late
4. Ensuring patients are ready to see the Doctor when called
5. Reducing crowding of reception area
6. Providing materials to engage patients while they are waiting for their appointment (mindful of infection)

You have decided the Deming Cycle or PDSA would work well for trialling and implementation of your suggested improvements.

Problem i) Identify four areas how Middle Beach Medical Centre can use systems and data for benchmarking and monitoring performance for continuous improvement.

Problem ii) How can you see if improvements have occurred? Eg comparing before and after. Customer evaluations provide feedback on the performance of an organisation. You can track evaluations to see if customer satisfaction is increasing (can evaluate specific areas within the evaluations -waiting time, efficiency of greeting procedures etc)